


Lab Partners

by phobiaDeficient (TheTriggeredHappy)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, I do various interpretations of Gaster, M/M, Not related in this fic, rating may change later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7205819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/phobiaDeficient
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various unrelated interpretations on the mysterious character "W. D. Gaster" and his relationship with his co-worker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lab Partners

**Author's Note:**

> [Written on mobile. First up, stupid dork but also a genius!gaster and sans dealing with his bullshit.]

  
"What the hell are you doing."

Gaster looked up, beaming widely, from the large, flat box in front of him to his assistant, who looked disheveled, tired, and above all, confused as all hell. On Sans, two of those three things were normal, and the third completely justifiable given who he was talking to. "Ah, you got here pretty fast!" he said chipperly, ignoring the spots in his vision as his gaze shifted up from the small lamp.

"You texted me three hours ago. On that note, it is five-thirty in the morning, so at the risk of sounding redundant; what the hell are you doing." Sans was by now a veteran to Gaster's antics, but that didn't mean that he just let them slide.

"Science, Sans. I am doing SCIENCE."

"Okay, you're sitting in a dark room with a single heat lamp pointed towards a box of dirt, and you're holding a ziplock of birdseed. I think it's time to take a break from the science, pal." Sans hauled Gaster to his feet, and the taller winced as he stood, legs aching in protest. "Coffee, then explanations."

"I've come up with an incredible new breakthrough!" W. D. babbled, even as Sans walked to the coffee machine (long since buried under various probably important stacks of papers) and started pouring out two cups for them. "I've made several genetic modifications to the growth cycle of a certain type of common flora non-indigenous to the Underground's climate and consistent meteorological mannerisms, and believe that I may have been able to accelerate the aging process on aforementioned fauna exponentially under reasonable and feasible real-world conditions!"

"Okay, what I'm gathering here, from the exhaustion-induced linguistic haze, is that you messed with Surface plants and made them grow faster?" Sans said as he put the second mug by the dispenser, looking back at Gaster again.

"Exponentially!" Gaster agreed. He pulled Sans from the machine, and he only barely kept from spilling the coffee on the ground. "This box of dirt is the future! Look!"

Gaster took the bag of seeds again, each about the size of a tomato seed. He swished around the dirt in his box and sprinkled some seeds on top, shaking it up again for a few seconds. He then took a water bottle from nearby and drizzled water over the whole thing.

For a moment, nothing. "Well, looks like there might not'be been enough controlled variables," Sans said evenly. Gaster shushed him, staring intently at the box.

A single sprout poked through the dark dirt. Sans knelt and watched with wide, disbelieving eyes as it grew, and a dozen other sprouts began to vine upwards and outwards, now two inches long, now three, now five, now eight. Just as Sans was about to ask if they would just keep growing, they slowed, small buds bursting into petals that shone in dark and bright violet.

"Ooh," Gaster said, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. "Haven't done dark purple before."

"So you basically just made insta-flowers?" Sans asked, incredulous. "At two in the morning today, you... you genetically engineered insta-flowers."

"Yes!"

"Gaster, why did you make these? For what purpose could you want insta-flowers? You... why?"

He stopped scribbling, looking first at the box, then the floor, then his papers, flipping through, then at the box again. He blinked. "Now, I'm sure I had a reason," he murmured.

Sans groaned. "W. D., I'm pretty sure you didn't think this through. Flowers that sprout within thirty seconds with just soil and water, and get petals within sixty? Do you know how fast these will multiply if they get out of lab conditions?"

"Wonderful! That will assist significantly in decreasing air pollution!" W. D. said cheerfully. "Until I remember the real reason, that will do!"

"No, they'll take over the ecosystem and kill indigenous plants, dominating their field within the hour. Sure, they're cool as heck and gave me an opportunity to use that pun just now, which is so situationally based that there's not many times I'll ever be able to make it, but it'll also drive every other plant to extinction. Let me see the other ones you made, we gotta fix this before something goes wrong," Sans said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Nothing is going to go wrong, I happen to be a professional," Gaster said, folding his arms.

"You made a machine that screams," Sans said, not breaking eye contact.

"That's not easy to do!"

"That was the only thing it did. It just screamed. Nothing else. It went for three hours until someone unplugged it. Show me the other plants you messed with."

Gaster grumbled under his breath as he walked to one of the large filing cabinets, pulling out three more trays. These trays had flowers in orange, yellowish-green, and maroon, the only difference their color and the fact that the orange ones seemed to have fewer in their box than the others.

"Wait, hold on. Why are they all different colors?" Sans asked as Gaster put them on the floor with the final box.

Gaster shrugged. "They simply grew this way. Color wasn't a variable that I was keeping track of, as it doesn't matter."

"Hold on. Get me a couple smaller boxes, or, pots, or... whatever. Let the guy who aced genetics handle this."

"Would this be biology or chemistry, is the question..." Gaster murmured, moving to a cabinet that held containers for testing purposes and then to a large tub of dirt that he had sitting in one corner of the room.

After about twenty minutes, Sans sat up, breathing out softly over a small field of various colors of flowers. "Okay. It looks like the way you messed with these things, they're all rapidly mutating shortly after roots begin appearing. So they aren't going to be able to reproduce, which is good. The seeds need to be messed with and altered individually for them to work. In other news, they've taken up a weird trait that involves blending in with whichever color the first sprout took. If one red is in a pot and you plant more seeds, they'll all be red. Not sure why. Maybe a fluke, but, I don't think so." Sans scratched the back of his head leisurely. "And for some reason they hate the color pink. Haven't seen a single pink one yet."

Gaster downed the last of his fourth cup of coffee, putting the mug on the arm of his chair. "Interesting. Perhaps they have a level of sentience and, finding the basic needs of sustinence met, then strive to find some sort of safety by blending in with the others, decreasing the chance of being picked out individually."

Sans stared at Gaster for a long moment. "Doc, I can barely handle the idea that you made insta-flowers in an overnight project, if you made thinking flowers too, I might have to kill you," Sans said calmly.

Gaster suddenly sat bolt upright, a grin crossing his face. "Ah! I remember now!"

"Remember what?" Sans was hardly phased, far too used to this sort of thing by now.

Gaster didn't reply, instead dashing over to the flowers and carefully picking several, blues and yellows and violets, then grabbing a glass from his desk and dropping them in. He returned and held them out to Sans with a smile. "For you."

Sans stared at the flowers first, then up at Gaster's smiling face, then at the flowers. A few long moments passed, Sans's face slowly heating up as he processed this. "...You wanted to give me flowers. So you biologically engineered flowers to give me," Sans said softly, dryly.

Gaster nodded once, still beaming.

"I..." Sans gently took the glass, staring down at them. "Wow. That's... thank you, Doc. Wow."

Gaster adjusted his own lab coat proudly. "You're welcome," he replied.

"...Do you think these things could be marketed as great last-minute gifts for anniversaries and stuff?" Sans finally asked.

"That sounds like a great idea!" Gaster said, nodding cheerfully. "I'll start typing up a report to the King, this is a very interesting discovery!"

He had already sat down and begun typing for about two minutes when he realized that Sans hadn't said anything else yet. He looked over his shoulder and Sans was looking down at the glass, turning over the flowers with one hand, his expression soft.

"Sans?" Gaster asked, a little concerned.

"I'm good, I'm good, just... Man, why do you have to be a genius and a nice guy? A dude after my own heart, haha." Sans didn't look up at him just yet. "All this trouble just to... man."

Gaster turned his chair, looking at Sans, a little confused by how oddly quiet Sans was being. "Are you all right?" he asked after a second.

Sans rubbed at his cheek, his grin going even wider. "Such a dork," Sans chuckled under his breath. "Dumb. Romantic dork. You're the worst. Wakes me up in the middle of the night, gives me a heart attack, then gives me some flowers, such a dumb dork. God. Five in the morning, jerk."

Gaster quelled a laugh, standing up and walking over to Sans, putting an arm around his shoulder, looking down at the flowers as well. "It really is kind of late," he acknowledged with a tip of his head.

"It _was_ ," Sans corrected. "Now it's six AM. Technically, it's barely early. And you didn't sleep."

"I have caffine to keep me going," Gaster said with a shrug.

Sans huffed, standing on tiptoes to bonk his forehead on Gaster's shoulder. "So dumb," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Go grab twenty on the cot, then I'm making you go get some breakfast. Tomorrow's Saturday, and you're taking a break, so help me, before you make sentient pumpkins or something."

"...Come to think of it—" Gaster mused aloud.

"No, G."

"—Could make very interesting Jack-o-lanterns!" Gaster offered cheerfully.

"That's kinda messed up."

"Adds to the spook factor."

"Did you just say spook?"

"Would they still be vegetarian though when made into food?" Gaster wondered aloud.

"You're totally not listening to me."

"I mean, certainly not vegan... were they ever vegan? Jack-o-lanterns have faces, after all."

"Why do I have to have a crush on you. Why."

"Well, I suppose they aren't technically, because you could carve a face in anything..."

"I could probably date anyone else, but nope, the idiot who makes insta-flowers."

"What?" Gaster asked, tuning back into the back end of Sans's sentence.

"Huh? Nothing. What?" Sans covered easily. "Hey, you should really go get that sleep now, pal."

"...Oh, right. Yes," Gaster said, seeming to catch up with himself. "C'mon, then," he gestured as he walked over to the corner of the room where the makeshift cot was.

"...Huh?" Sans raised an eyebrow, surprised.

"C'mon." Gaster hopped up onto the cot and patted the space next to him, smiling. "You're tired too, aren't you?"

Sans felt his face heating up for the second time that morning, and he tried holding in a grin. "Such a dork," he sighed under his breath as he shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way over to sit next to him. "Go on, you sappy nerd."

Gaster smiled happily, wrapping his arms around Sans and laying down, nuzzling his face into Sans's shoulder. "I can't help it," he said, words muffled against him. "You're deceptively soft and warm."

"Yeah, yeah. Sure. If that's your excuse, then okay," Sans said, rolling his eyes, setting an alarm on his phone and tossing it over to the counter not far from them. "Just go to sleep."

Gaster just nodded, and Sans felt him relaxing as he quickly fell asleep. Sans couldn't help but feel pretty comfortable, all wrapped up like this by Gaster. He exhaled softly, shifting his head slightly and letting himself fall asleep as well.

 

(Wasn't his fault that the Doc was a cuddler. And irresistibly cute. Man, he was so fucked.)

**Author's Note:**

> ["If you weren't so cute I wouldn't deal with your stupid bullshit" -Sans, probably every single day.]


End file.
